


River's Bridge

by Schgain



Category: Alice Isn't Dead (Podcast)
Genre: F/F, Mild Horror, Minor Character Death, Southern Gothic, Stream of Consciousness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-16
Updated: 2016-04-16
Packaged: 2018-06-02 13:51:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,136
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6568834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schgain/pseuds/Schgain
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She heads, if only temporarily, south. Strange things happen in the south.</p>
            </blockquote>





	River's Bridge

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Snowstorm](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6452296) by [corruptedkid](https://archiveofourown.org/users/corruptedkid/pseuds/corruptedkid). 



_The radio crackles to life with the press of a button. There is a moment of white noise, an intake of breath, and then..._

You know, Alice, the southeast isn't so bad. 

I know you never really liked Florida- you'd say it every time I brought up memories of Disney World- and it wasn't a complaint, not really. Just you musing. You never liked Florida. I didn't press. 

Should I have pressed? Were you trying to spark a conversation? Were you trying to get me to ask why or when or how?

Maybe you weren't. But I'm asking you those questions now. Better late than never. 

Anyways. 

The drive from Pittsburgh to Tampa is a little over a thousand miles. Nothing too long, still boring. The land flattens out, the air gets sticky, the trees don't ever hit that autumnal stage. Flowers bloom even in January, there's the sound of wildlife. 

_She trails off, hums a few lines of a top 40s song. Distracted, her hand releases the cassette._

It'll probably put me behind schedule, but I'm taking some sleep at a rest stop. 

_More static. In between, music. Classical. Prelude #2 in C Minor._

I'm in South Carolina right now- some liminial half-forest half-swamp, choked with vegetation and clouds of gnats. The rest stop is nice. I've been here before. Twice, actually. When mom and I went to Disney World, we drove. 

There's an actual truck stop only a few miles from here. The usual things- a Subway with wilted lettuce and soggy bread, sleepy rest stop workers, bright fluorescent lights, gas station. The usual things. I could go there. It would not be hard.

But this rest stop smells sickly sweet, like real jasmine, and there are boughs of trees leaning over the parking lot. They're dripping spanish moss, sometimes ivy, that sway in the breeze. Pretty, in an unconventional sense. 

There's only a bathroom here, lit by halogen lamps in an eerie orange glow. A broken vending machine, I hope you don't mind I took some peanut M&Ms from it. A girl's gotta eat, after all. No stale subway footlongs for me. 

Shit! 

_Clattering. The recorder falls from her hands._

Sorry, I heard something like-- like a firework, or a gun. But more earth-shattering than that. It made my truck rock. I spilled peanut M&Ms all over the dashboard. 

There it is again. Did you hear it? Well, I mean, did it somehow manifest in this radio message, this telegraph, that I'm sending you? Are you listening?

Like thunder in the ground. I hope it's not rain. Flash floods happen around here.   
I'm gonna try to get some rest. I've got all of Georgia to drive through. 

_The radio abruptly starts. Under the sound of her panting you can hear the truck stalling, the key turning in the ignition._

I-I'm staring the truck, I'm getting the fuck out of here. 

I dozed off, Alice. Pulled the quilt over my lap and hoped for an hour of respite, and then-- and then--

Oh, Alice... 

Something was seeping across the ground. Faster than lava but just as viscous and hot, the mud was bubbling over and-- you know the sounds I heard earlier? 

Cannons. The real kind, copper but tarnished to teal, smelling of gunpowder and death. And that seeping black ooze over the ground. It clung to my tires, to my exhaust pipe. It wanted to drag me into the... The whatever it was. The mire. 

I wish there had been a TV at the rest stop. Maybe you were in Charleston. Maybe you were on the news. 

You, Alice, just the way you were when you left. Down to the detail. 

Are you doing this? Sending the swamp to slow my progress? Is this you? 

I wish you would come home. I wish... I wish you had left something behind. Even a scent. And not a metaphorical scent, like a clue. Just the way you smell on the clothes you wear, your side of the bed, but nothing. You left, and there's this heavy silence where you used to be, some gaping hole that makes me wonder if you were ever there in the first place. 

But then I see you on the TV again, and I know. 

_Static._

The road's swamped. Literally. I didn't see it rain, but there's at least four inches of water on the highway. Shit. And there's...

A body. In a grey outfit, tattered, floating on his belly. Flies swarm around him. 

Jesus. 

I take back what I said, Alice. This isn't your handiwork. You're not cruel, and if you ever experienced these kinds of nightmares you never told me. 

You never told me a lot of things, huh? Just one more question added to the list of Things I Never Asked Alice. 

I like to think I know who I married. I like to think that, if I asked, you would be honest. 

I like to think. 

_A lilt to her voice, the previous day's fears anxiety's out of mind or at the very least, out of sight. In the background, Prelude #2 in C Minor._

Georgia, a summary: torrential downpours, verdant cotton fields, impressive stormcloud horizons. A lot of confederate flags, a lot of tiny overgrown chapels sun-bleached to white and flaking paint. Uneventful, for the most part. Depressing, but uneventful. 

Florida came a bit more suddenly. It came with birdsong and white ibises, really bright red flowers hanging from trees, billboards talking about Universal and Gatorland. 

Gatorland sounds interesting. Maybe I'll go someday. 

I'm pulling into a Cracker Barrel. I'll keep you posted, Alice. 

_Radio feedback caused by a station left untuned. Through the white noise french words can be heard, but not many. Not clearly enough for them to mean anything._

I came out, stepped out of the Cracker Barrel, I-- 

It felt like snow, cold and crystalline. It wasn't the same black-red filth that I saw two states ago. Maybe it was? I don't claim to know about the matter of.... Ooze. I pulled out of the Cracker Barrel parking lot and I saw...

Alice, I saw a sea of men, holding muskets and wearing tatterned uniforms and for all the world lacking colour, knee deep in the now-frozen slime. I yelled, Alice. Backed over one, then another. They crumpled like birds, seeping face-first into tar and then... 

Then I am in a small town called Plant City, just outside of Tampa. The sun shines, birds yell (because they don't tweet down here, they shriek and quack and bugle and bellow), and I keep driving to the University of South Florida. 

The man who picked up my delivery said to visit Venice Beach, since I'm going that direction. Fossils. 

Maybe I will, Alice. Who knows. Hope you like fossilized shark teeth.


End file.
